


It will be fine. --- It won’t.

by 666Neme666



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: AU, Angst, Bad Wolf, Bad Wolf Rose Tyler, Multi, Rose is a Badass, bit cold, mentions of Jack/Ten, post-s4, this story is delibarately STRANGE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-03
Updated: 2014-01-03
Packaged: 2018-01-07 08:30:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1117735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/666Neme666/pseuds/666Neme666
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Doctor left her and John on that beach, their life became fine. Nothing spectacular, but fine. Then suddenly it was not. Her world broke apart while she stayed constant, and she had to learn how to adapt and become who she was always meant to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It will be fine. --- It won’t.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is deliberately strange, so please consider this before saying "this is shit" after the first paragraph! 
> 
> Also, I'm not a native English speaker and I don't have a beta - if you find something wrong with the story (typos, f-ed up word order, etc.), then I would be happy to read them in a review. ;)

It’s all right.

_It’s not._

It will be fine.

_It won’t._

I will be fine.

_This is getting ridiculous._

I’m happy.

_Now that’s just a blatant lie._

People were always tiptoeing around her. First because she was stuck in this universe alone. Then because she was stuck in this universe with him. 

_“Poor thing, she worked so hard, only to be left behind again!”_

_“Isn’t it tragic? She was left here with the second best.”_

And that hurt more than anything. Not the part where she’s been left here, no. But the pitying looks she got every time she went out holding hands with _him._

_The second best._

First he wasn’t bothered by it. John barely seemed to notice the very obvious way people would look at them or talk with them. He was determined to make her life worth living, to make her as happy as she’s been in the TARDIS, traveling across time and space. He wanted to make her even happier than that. And he was brilliant.

But he could never be enough.

It wasn’t for the lack of trying. They both tried, really, _really_ tried, and could almost do it, but then they saw where it would all end, and that shattered every hope they've managed to keep alive for such a long time.

**oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo**

It happened five years after the Doctor have left them on that beach. Rose came home from work late because Sam, her co-worker, invited her up to his flat – _he_ knew about it but never said anything –, only to find John Smith – her husband, her Doctor, _her humanity_ – sobbing, curled up on their bed with the photographs of their life strewn around in the unlit bedroom.

She stopped in the doorway, her face emotionless, and just watched him. _Her husband._ Some would look at them now and sigh brokenly: ‘Oh, how much their lives have changed!’ But did it, really? _Her Doctor._ Before he could even notice her standing there, she closed her eyes and began to move around the room, searching for her nightclothes by memory. _Her humanity._ The heat of the furniture, the sounds of the different fabrics and materials, and the taste of the colours guided her feet and hand. Even though she couldn’t see anything, she never stepped on any of the photos. When she finally sat down next to him, the room was eerie quiet. She felt his hands touching her face, wiping away the tears she didn’t even notice were running down her face. 

“Oh, Rose… I’m so, so sorry.” 

Two photos were pressed into her hands. One of them was five years old, taken just after they were both left in this universe. They were holding hands in Jackie’s Christmas party, smiling shyly into the camera. The other photo was taken recently, on Rose’s birthday party. She was standing in the middle of the room, arms around an older version of John, smiling in a way that for some reason usually made people want to look away from her. But most importantly she was looking just like on the first photo.

Exactly like on the first photo.

She even looked younger in that pink dress, damn it. 

“It’s all right.” She said, even though she knew that it was far from all right. She knew and he knew, but they both did their best to pretend otherwise. Something in which they’ve both became quite good.

**oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo**

Three days after that tear stained night Sam got promoted and was sent to America. Rose made sure he had everything he needed. She never saw him again.

John knew about it all. She pretended she didn’t see the pity in his eyes.

**oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo**

Although John tried to convince her otherwise, she stayed with him until the end.

It happened almost twenty years after they were left here. 

The increasing look of pity never left John’s eyes. When her lack of physical aging became obvious to everyone, people became more wary around her. The whispers – sticky, black ones outside, and tenuous, golden ones inside her head – never stopped. The gazes followed her everywhere, clinging into her clothes and hair, leaving a foul smelling dust in them. 

This is how she knew that they knew. Knew that it was her. Not some kind of higher power, not the bosses at Torchwood who decided to put John to the post where he finally met his fate, and not the alien whose gun finally did it. No. It wasn’t them. It was her.

She killed him.

The wind still leaves traces of blood under her nails.

**oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo**

She travelled the world for almost three hundred years. She searched for someone who could teach her, only to realise that nature was her best and most trusted teacher. She’s spent years wandering from village to village, leaving behind only footprints in the fresh blankets of ash. Fire became her only lover whose caress she accepted, turning the flames golden every time they touched her naked skin. When she felt like there was nothing else she could give to the fire, she left it. She lay down at the ground and let the forests become her tomb and cradle at the same time. Sunflowers grew after her steps. It took her nearly ten years to find the perfect mountain where the wind could whisper to her. It told her tales – stories of the present, the past, and the future. Time became liquid to her, and she became the bowl holding everything in. Time slowly took up the golden colour of her copper skin. In the last few years she was living in a lake, washing away the dust from the road she travelled on. She stayed there until the water cleaned out the brown of dried blood from under her nails and from behind her eyelids, leaving only the gold behind.

She stepped out of the lake reborn. In front of her reality tore itself up, its black blood swallowing her up before vanishing without a trace.

Rose Tyler left the mirror.

**oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo**

Jack was sitting in a bar somewhere in the Boldog galaxy (or in the Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy, as it was called on Earth), nursing a highly alcoholic _Lup Badik_. The drink’s name went unnoticed by him.

About a month ago he felt something in the air change. He became restless, and in less than a day he packed up and left behind everything – his life, his work, his family and friends – only to realise he had no idea where to go. He began to travel from planet to planet, trying to work out where he should be. His next ride would only leave in the morning, so Jack wanted to make sure he was going to have a bed where he could sleep for the night, without actually paying for anything but that one drink he offered to the girl sitting next to him. The girl’s scaly, blue skin felt surprisingly hot under his fingers, which was a nice change given this planet’s cold climate. 

“And how old are you, sweetie?” she giggled in an obviously intoxicated way. She was young, definitely too young for him – but if he looked at things that way everybody was too young for him. Well, maybe not everybody, but he haven’t seen _that_ particular alien he still wants to shag for hundreds of years now. He won’t stop having sex just because of a small age gap between him and his partners.

“I’m thirty-one.” He winked, and left the ‘six hundred’ from the number unsaid. He leant closer to the girl and slid his right hand just a bit further up on her thigh, making her gasp and trying to spread her legs more apart without being too obvious about it.

“Well,” she said, breathless “I’m twenty-five. Six years difference is not much, is it?” Jack nodded, though he knew she couldn’t have been more than twenty. It didn’t matter. She took hold of her drink and began to lift the glass to her mouth, but then her eyes focused on something behind his back and the movement was halted. Fear appeared on her face, and she was out of the bar in less than a second. Jack almost didn’t want to know what scared her so.

He was just about to turn around when another woman sit down to the recently vacated seat next to him.

“Hello, gorgeous.” A feral grin stretched out across the full, red lips. “Thank you for the drink.” And the blond woman in simple jeans and red hoodie slowly drank the rest of the drink the other girl left behind.

His mind seemed to freeze over. He couldn’t believe this was real. When he finally realised he’s been staring with mouth open, he tried to force something out of his suddenly too dry throat. “Ro–“ he began, but was interrupted by a soft finger on his lips, the woman’s face only inches from his own.

“Shhh… I don’t think we know each other yet.” She whispered, her breath hot on his face. “I’m Bad Wolf. Though people usually just call me the Wolf. It makes them feel less uncomfortable.” Her grin made something stir in him. He licked his lips, his tongue brushing her finger which she took away deliberately too slow.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Bad Wolf. I am Jack.” He took her hand and lifted it next to his face. He turned his head slightly and placed a soft kiss to the woman’s wrist. “At your service.” He looked into her golden-brown eyes and gently bit down on the spot where he just kissed her not a second ago. He took pride in her answering moan.

“Now, Jack. I’m travelling the skies and I have some space on my ship. If you are interested…” with that the woman stood and began to leave the bar. Jack was hot on her heels.

**oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo**

“Why do you need me here?” Jack found it surprisingly difficult to talk about anything serious while lying naked in her bed; her hands doing such things to him that even he didn’t know could be pleasurable until now.

“I need you to stop me if I leave humanity behind too much.” She answered without hesitation. _Oh, she had so many things to do! A reputation to build, a name to get well known, and a score to settle with a certain Doctor…_ She grinned as she guided Jack to her entrance. _But now, she wanted him for this._ As she sank down, her pleasure filled hiss resonated through the room.

**oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo**

At some other part of the universe the Doctor wandered through the corridors of his TARDIS, searching for the howling wolf that woke him up from his nightmares. His feverish eyes never noticed the golden tendrils sinking back inside the heart of his precious ship.

 

 

 


End file.
